Australia reacts to doping report

A police investigation into sports doping and match-fixing is expected to draw blood in the coming days and weeks.

Major sporting codes were thrown into crisis yesterday when an Australian Crime Commission (ACC) investigation found widespread drug use in Australian professional sport, with some athletes being given substances not yet approved for human use.

A former head of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority described the findings' release as the "blackest day in Australian sport" while Justice Minister Jason Clare has appealed to anyone who thinks they may be implicated to come forward before they are tracked down.

Australian Olympic chief John Coates has praised the Australian Crime Commission and Federal Government's public declaration of a crackdown against drugs in sport, saying the time for "weeding" out cheats had come.

In a statement Coates, the Australian Olympic Committee president, urged Olympics sports in Australia to join forces with other sporting codes, saying it would be "naive" to think any sport was immune from doping and illegal betting.

Coates, a long-time supporter of a tougher regime on betting and drugs in sport, said that penalties must be severe because of the threat posed to sport by a criminal element.

Police are on alert for match-fixing in Australia as a result of identifying large betting pools on domestic sporting events.

On Thursday Victorian police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton said there has been no evidence of match-fixing in Victoria but that he believes some sports are at risk given the large betting pools they are attracting.

But World Anti-Doping Agency president John Fahey has rejected a suggestion that sports betting should be temporarily banned, now the Australian Crime Commission has uncovered doping and links to organised crime in sport.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon is calling for the ban until sporting codes are cleared of links to organised crime.